"A Qi... Raiment?"
"Yes. Though we lump it all together as 'raiment,' it can take the form of a weapon or clothing for some. Honestly, those whose Qi Raiment manifests as a true accessory, like mine, are quite rare..."
"An... accessory?"
Luo Qingyan muttered, utterly bewildered. She tried to make out the thing floating behind Bai Fanxian, but the murky haze and the surging power radiating from it never once let up. Even she could not tell what shape it truly took.
"..."
Bai Fanxian did not answer. She only let a faint smile touch the corner of her mouth, but the overwhelming, unintentional charm radiating from it left Luo Qingyan's face burning red.
"...That's a frightening amount of destructive power, truly."
"You think so?"
Bai Fanxian raised an eyebrow, puzzled, but before she could even turn her attention back to the ingredients, now fully refined into vibrant, multicolored liquid, they were already finished. They drifted together in front of her, swirling like a stream circling through the aura of life pouring out of the massive cauldron.
"In you go..."
The rainbow-colored liquid seemed almost alive. It trembled faintly, as though pleased, before flowing into the cauldron down to the very last drop. The Greybeard Alchemist stared at the sight, wide-eyed, and asked in a trembling voice.
"Little miss... don't tell me those ingredients were just the solvent?"
"Is that strange?"
Of course it is!
The Greybeard Alchemist wanted to shout exactly that, but did not dare. He drew a deep breath to steady himself.
Under normal circumstances, the most common and simplest solvent used in refining medicine was water.
No matter how high the grade of medicine, some portion would still rely on water as a component, because it served as the crucial medium that let the ingredients fuse into one.
And even though certain medicines used something else as a solvent instead, such as tears or blood, extracting the ingredients themselves down into a liquid had been done before too.
But in his entire life, he had never once seen a liquid that had gone through that process while still retaining every one of its original properties, intact, like this!
The old man stared intently into the cauldron. What method could Bai Fanxian possibly be using?
Because if he closed his eyes and relied only on his sense of touch, he would still be certain, without a doubt, that the liquid was the very stones, leaves, and even bones he had seen floating in the sky just moments ago!
The old man could not make sense of it at all until his head began to ache. His mind drifted back to what Bai Fanxian had just said.
"It's not that you don't understand... it's that you can't understand."
...A principle... belonging to the Transcendent?
The Greybeard Alchemist sighed. Once he realized this lay beyond the current limits of his own understanding, there was no use forcing himself any further.
But still...
Knowing now that his own knowledge of alchemy amounted to little more than a drop in the ocean, an excitement he had not felt in a long time welled up from a heart that had long grown weary. Bai Fanxian glanced at the old man, pleased to see a smile and a childlike sparkle in his eyes.
She had not misjudged him.
But there was something more important at hand now.
"Luo Qingyan, add the Starcluster Grass..."
The sudden order startled her. Luo Qingyan had been just as lost staring at the colorful liquid, having completely forgotten that Bai Fanxian had called her in here to be her assistant in the first place. She hurriedly extended her own Heaven Sense outward while racking her brain.
Starcluster Grass was a Grade-5 herb that grew only beneath open skies clear enough to see starlight.
If she remembered correctly, in the herb garden out back...
Fwoosh!
With a single flick of her hand, what she needed came floating straight through the central hall. It was a blue grass glittering with silver light, like the night sky itself. She glanced over at Bai Fanxian, and once she saw the nod, she used her qi to push the grass down into the cauldron.
Rumble...
A continuous low hum sounded the moment the Starcluster Grass met the heat. It did not fuse together with the colorful liquid. Instead, it sank down and hung motionless at the center of the cauldron, drawing in a massive amount of life force from the liquid around it.
"Sky Plum Root..."
This time, Luo Qingyan did not space out. The instant Bai Fanxian finished speaking, a distinctive red root shot out from the storehouse behind them. The crowd, waiting eagerly for the show, burst into excited murmurs at the unexpected sight of such high-grade ingredients.
"That's a Grade-6 ingredient right there..."
"Didn't think the Alchemy Palace would even have ingredients of this grade stored away..."
"Hey, doesn't this mean that whole thing might..."
"Hah! Aren't you all underestimating an important trade partner of the Seabound Caravan just a little too much?"
Before another baseless rumor could spread, a young man's voice cut in. The crowd parted down the middle as a stout man appeared, flanked by attendants on either side.
...The Young Lord of the Seabound Caravan.
Ma Junfei!
"I'm the one who supplies her with the high-grade ingredients myself. Does anyone have a problem with that?"
Pressured by his challenging glare, the townspeople hastily shook their heads. Ma Junfei let out a heavy sigh as his mind drifted back to what had happened earlier. Those high-grade herbs had all gone toward paying for the Grade-6 medicine he had scrambled to buy up, the portion he had not managed to prepare in time.
So showing up to support the Goddess Alchemy Palace in its time of need was, in its own way, his means of repaying the debt.
Though it seemed that might not have been quite so necessary after all, he supposed?
The stout man, who had rushed over the moment he heard the news, looked inward at the elegant figure of Bai Fanxian at the center of it all. Even as the Young Lord of a vast caravan who had traveled to nearly every corner of the world, he had to admit honestly that he had never seen a woman so brimming with both charm and power before.
It seemed choosing to become the Alchemy Palace's trade partner had been the right call after all.
"It's not just Young Lord Ma... isn't that the Second Prince behind him?"
No one knew who had spoken, but it succeeded in catching the attention of those at the edge of the crowd. They all turned the same way and found that another man had followed quietly behind Ma Junfei.
The Second Prince looked exactly as he always had. He wore his signature deep blue robe trimmed in gold, his face and bearing still full of smiles and energy. The moment he noticed he had been spotted, he let out a soft chuckle in greeting.
"Second Prince! It's been quite a while."
Ma Junfei, of course, knew the young man standing before him quite well. He had visited and sold goods to the royal palace often enough that the two of them were already well acquainted.
"Young Master Ma... hello."
The Second Prince clasped his hands together and greeted him politely.
"You're here to check on your brother's condition, I take it. No need to worry. The one refining his medicine is an important trade partner of mine. Her skill, from what I hear, is simply outstanding."
The stout man lifted his chin as he gestured toward Bai Fanxian. He did not know all that much about the young woman, but as a merchant, he could not resist talking her up a little in advance.
"Your trade partner, is she..."
Something about the Second Prince's final remark nagged at Ma Junfei, because the way he stared at Bai Fanxian carried an oddly cold edge. But the instant he realized he had been noticed, he smoothly tucked it away behind a smile.
"Look at that — Sky Lizard scales!"
All attention snapped back to the alchemy. The next ingredient to float in was a handful of white scales. The moment they arrived, Luo Qingyan sliced them in two with a small knife. When they were tossed into the cauldron, the scales trembled, then fluttered gently, just like butterfly wings.
"Everyone, step back a little..."
Bai Fanxian stepped down to stand before her enormous cauldron and ran her palm across it. At once, a rumble of thunder cracked through the air. The gathered crowd noticed a thick, dark cloud beginning to form above the Goddess Alchemy Palace. The dangerous flickers of light within it left more than a few people uneasy.
"Is it going to rain...?"
"Grade-7 medicine sometimes draws in natural phenomena..."
BOOM!
"...!?"
The moment the words faded, a bolt of golden lightning struck down without warning. But before it could reach the medicine cauldron, Bai Fanxian's mysterious "Qi Raiment" shot forward to intercept it, absorbing it until it shattered into nothing.
"..."
This unexpected danger sent the crowd into a panic. They craned their necks to look up at the sky, caught between fear and curiosity, no longer able to focus on the alchemy at all.
"Little miss... what was that?"
The Greybeard Alchemist figured there was only one person who could answer that. The old man looked at Bai Fanxian and waited, his heart pounding with anticipation.
And after a moment of silence, Bai Fanxian continued to explain.
"The higher the grade of the medicine, the more violent the phenomena it draws grow in turn. That's why a Grade-7 alchemist needs their own Qi Raiment just to protect themselves."
"..."
"It's a process that demands intense focus... There are Grade-7 alchemists who, once disturbed badly enough to shatter their own qi, were never able to form a Qi Raiment again for the rest of their lives."
Just hearing that was enough to give Luo Qingyan goosebumps. The reason Bai Fanxian kept falling silent every so often had to be exactly this. She quickly shot a look at the Greybeard Alchemist, urging him to hold off on whatever he wanted to ask next, while at the same time unleashing her own qi to wrap another layer of protection around Bai Fanxian, which drew a small smile to the corner of the other woman's mouth.
If it's this dangerous... shouldn't she be refining it somewhere enclosed!?
Though she wanted to ask exactly that, she had no choice but to swallow the words back down the moment her eyes met Bai Fanxian's, who was deep in concentration as the atmosphere shifted once again.
Rumble...
And it was not only the lightning from above. The ground below trembled as well. The mountain that the Palace stood on felt as though someone had shaken it with brutal force, hard enough to send ordinary people tumbling to the ground. Shouts of alarm broke out in every direction amid the chaos. Ma Junfei steadied himself by gripping his attendant's arm tightly, looking left and right in shock.
"What's going on!?"
"I-I don't know, sir."
Crack!
This time, a bolt of golden lightning cracked down right in the middle of the crowd, before a great gust of wind swept into the Palace grounds. Fortunately, it was drawn toward Bai Fanxian's power instead, leaving no one hurt. The stout man watched the unpredictable chaos unfold, his face starting to turn pale.
"W-we'd better go take shelter over there, sir."
"Yes... yes, I think so too. Second Prince! Let's get to that big building over there too... shall we?"
...The Second Prince.
Where had the Second Prince gone?
Ma Junfei looked left and right a second time before his eyes caught the familiar blue robe among the chaotic crowd.
The stout man waved to get his attention, but froze when he saw the Second Prince's arm slowly turning pitch black, a strange power beginning to surface around him.
W-wait... Second Prince... what are you about to do?
"Wh-what is that?"
The young man's demeanor had turned so cold it seemed almost devoid of feeling. Ma Junfei could not help getting goosebumps, because the look in the Second Prince's eyes reminded him of a particular kind of person he knew all too well.
...A ruthless assassin.
"Th-this is bad!"
The stout man tried to move. He followed the direction of the other man's gaze and realized who the target was.
Fwip!
But before he could even cry out a warning, the inhuman arm snapped forward at a speed no one could follow!
A black projectile, packed with some kind of dangerous energy, tore through the crowd without anyone noticing. And when it struck the border meant to block it, instead of bouncing off as it should have, it passed straight through as though the border were nothing but empty air!
Luo Qingyan, inside the border, sensed the danger instantly. Her Domain of Three Seasons Flora manifested in a split second, at the fastest speed she could possibly manage.
Roots and venomous vines burst up from the ground, straining with everything they had to stop the black projectile.
But it was already too late...
...because the target had never been her to begin with.
It was Bai Fanxian, pouring every ounce of her focus into refining the medicine and controlling her Qi Raiment, standing right there instead!
"..."
Crack!